Sue returns from Hands on India

By Sue Ferguson - 21 Feb 2017

What a wonderful experience Hands on India 2017 trip to Siliguri, West Bengal has been. Even though this was my 5th trip to the same region, and again group leader, each trip brings new experiences, working with different wonderful inspiring teams and the chance to see our work and results in the community grow.

For 2 weeks our team of 20 chiropractors and 4 clinic assistants packed up our 3 jeeps and travelled from our base to remote communities along bumpy dusty crazy roads to care for people who do not have access to medical care. During our time we gave over 2500 treatments.

We saw so many interesting cases and the resilience of the people is truly amazing. Many continue to labour with major fractures that had not been cared for, strokes and bodies that have worked in hard physical labour for a lifetime. As always the results we saw were astounding and a reminder of why all the preparation is so worthwhile.

This year we made great progress meeting with hospitals and Drs that are happy to work with us when we refer patients to them. Knowing we have the local support and being able to get people help they wouldn’t otherwise access of is a great relief to us.

We met with representatives of many of the Women’s Empowerment groups that involve thousands of women now and they were so excited to tell us of their projects and progress. They are very pleased with large torches we have funded for the villages that are being used successfully to scare elephants from their villages. Many of them are also purchasing chairs and tables, pots and pans, which they rent out for weddings and community events. Others are growing mushrooms and organic produce for sale and of course there are the piglets and goats. What is most exciting is how communities are being drawn together to resolve their own issues.

Returning to the 7 schools we fund and seeing these children learning in such basic conditions but so happy and developing so well is always a highlight for me.

Our team of amazing chiropractors had exceptional knowledge a diversity of backgrounds and clinical experience. We made the most of this with evening education sessions, a challenge at the end of the day but what an opportunity!

As always it was a wonderful experience, a time of unmatched learning, a chance to really connect with beautiful local people, of great fun especially dancing with kids at the orphanage and Women’s Empowerment groups.

Thank you all for you support and generosity in our fund raising – the $80,000 we raised will make an enormous difference to funding our projects and change so many lives. Our blog has more details on Facebook – Hands on India